While completing your courses online, you want to make sure your not only gaining relevant experience, but making connections with professionals who can vouch for your ability to attend graduate school.
To get closer with a faculty member in the psychology department, you can ask them about being a Teaching Assistant from a distance. If you have a 3.0 UCF GPA, and earned an A in that psych class that you want to TA for, you can ask the professor if they have the availability. While you’re doing well in your courses, be sure to reach out to your professors to talk about the material to show you’re interested and willing to learn more. If the professor says you can TA for them, just forward their yes to the advising center and we will get you enrolled for the 3 credit PSY 4942 Teaching Assistant course that you take along with helping the professor.
You can connect with professionals in the field in your place of work, volunteer, or internship that is relevant. You need to gain this experience anyways to show that this is the right path for you, but your supervisor is oftentimes someone that can write a letter of recommendation for you.
If you work full time, make sure it’s in a career that is relevant or that you’re spending time volunteering in a field that is related to what you want to go into. If not, you can consider changing careers- there are jobs posted on CareerShift that you search for after making an account:
Check out our webpage on relevant experience to learn more about the TA opportunity and more: https://sciences.ucf.edu/psychology/undergraduate-advising/opportunities-in-psychology/internships/
Check out our information on gaining letters of recommendation as well: https://sciences.ucf.edu/psychology/undergraduate-advising/preparing-for-graduate-school/letters-of-recommendation/
As always, talk with psychadvising@ucf.edu if you have additional questions!
-Erin